An estimate request page

The distinction, stated on the page

An estimate is an approximation based on what you know so far. A quote is a fixed price for defined work. Customers do not reliably know the difference, and courts in many places treat them differently.

So say it in plain words rather than assuming it is understood. This is an estimate, which means the final figure may change if we find X, is a sentence that prevents most disputes.

Our page on quote requests covers the other half. Which one you offer should be a deliberate decision rather than whichever word you happened to use, because a search engine or an answer engine matches the word too.

Put the word in the page title as well as the body. Somebody searching for an estimate and somebody searching for a quote are often in different states, and matching their word tells them they are in the right place.

Give a range, not a figure

A single number is heard as a price no matter how it is qualified. A range communicates uncertainty in a way a caveat never does, because the uncertainty is in the figure itself.

Say what puts a job at the bottom of the range and what puts it at the top. That turns the range into useful information rather than into a hedge.

And say what is outside it entirely. Jobs that cannot be estimated without seeing them should be described that way rather than given a number nobody can stand behind.

Explain how you arrived at the range. Two similar jobs last month came to these figures is more convincing than any formula, and it gives the customer something concrete to reason about.

Site visits and charges

Say whether a visit is needed, how long it takes, and whether it is chargeable. The call-out charge is the question people are least comfortable asking and most likely to leave over.

If the visit is chargeable and deducted from the work, say that explicitly. It changes how the charge is perceived entirely, and it is the detail most often left out.

Give a realistic window for when the visit can happen. Availability is often the deciding factor between two businesses that both replied.

What the page must say

The list below is what prevents the two expensive outcomes: an enquiry that never arrives, and a customer who believed the estimate was a price.

• That an estimate is approximate and may change
• What would move the figure up or down
• Whether a site visit is needed
• Whether the visit is chargeable, and whether it is deducted
• How long the estimate remains valid
• What happens next, and when
• What you would need before giving a fixed quote

Wording that protects both sides

Subject to inspection, based on the information provided, and excluding conditions not visible at the time are ordinary and reasonable. They also read as competence rather than as evasion.

Keep the wording identical between the page, the confirmation message and the document you send. Disputes are usually built out of small differences between those three.

Our page on pricing claims covers the rules on presenting prices. Nothing here is legal advice, and consumer protection requirements vary.

When the figure has to change

Tell the customer before the work rather than after, in writing, with the reason. A revised figure explained in advance is accepted far more often than the same figure explained afterward.

Keep a record of what you found and why it changed the price. That record is what settles the disagreement if one happens, and it takes a photograph and two lines.

And be honest if you simply estimated badly. Customers forgive an error explained plainly more readily than a figure that creeps upward without any explanation offered.

Following the enquiry through

Confirm receipt immediately and automatically, then meet the timescale you stated on the page. A silent form is indistinguishable from a broken one within about an hour.

Follow up once after the estimate. Most businesses never do, and a single polite message converts a meaningful share of enquiries that would otherwise go quiet.

Ask the ones who went elsewhere what decided it. Price, timing and response speed are the usual three, and two of those are entirely within your control.

Keep a note of how often the final figure landed inside the range you gave. Over a year that single number tells you whether your estimating is honest or optimistic, and optimistic estimating costs goodwill.